Comparison
School cover spreadsheets. Fine, until the owner is off.
A shared spreadsheet is how a lot of schools run cover, and for a small stable team it can be enough. It starts to hurt when the file has three names, the printout in the staffroom is yesterday's, and the only person who understands the colour code is not in.
- One owner, one current file, one printout: a spreadsheet can do that
- It gets messy when sickness, split lunch and lesson cover land together
- Staff should not have to guess which attachment is live
- Software is worth it when the morning rewrite is the job
When a spreadsheet is enough
A nursery or a small primary with the same midday team most weeks can live on one sheet. If absences are rare, and the head can hold the pattern in their head, a file on the office laptop is not a failure. Blank templates downloaded in September rarely survive to October, because the school is not generic.
Where the same file breaks
The break is usually a person, not a formula. The owner is in a meeting, or off, and someone else saves a copy. Cover for a TA clashes with a duty they were already on, and the sheet does not notice. In the 15-staff primary example, reprinting and sending the sheet is part of at least 5 hours a week. In the 88-staff secondary example the week is about 8 hours, because lesson cover joins the duties.
What you would be changing
SchoolRota is the weekly pattern plus a daily board, with a published PDF and an email, so midday staff are not logging in. You still decide who moves. It will not build the teaching timetable and it will not book supply. If the spreadsheet is calm, keep it. If the morning is the spreadsheet, that is the point of the product.
Common questions
- Is a cover spreadsheet wrong?
- No. It is the normal tool until the school outgrows one editor and one printout. The problem is an outdated copy in the staffroom, not the fact of using Excel.
- What should a cover spreadsheet contain?
- The post or lesson, the time, the name, and the constraint that stops a bad swap: first aid, a 1:1, or a lesson they are already teaching. A tab no one opens does not count.
- Do we have to leave the spreadsheet on day one?
- No. Many schools run the old sheet in parallel for a week while they check the PDF matches what they would have printed. The trial is 30 days and does not need a card.
See also how to plan the morning, cover software, duty rotas and the 15-staff primary example.
Try it with your own school this term.
30 days free, no card, full product on your own data. Set the portal up when it suits you, publish your first day, and see what 07:40 feels like when cover is already proposed.